Xiaomi Mi Band 3 vs Mi Band 4. What’s new and what’s not.

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The Xiaomi Mi Band 3 was launched on May 31, 2018 in India and it took several months to reach the Indian shores. It was finally launched in India on September 24th, 2018 in India and was available through the Mi stores, Mi.com and Amazon.in. The fitness tracker was a massive hit and Xiaomi claimed that in May 2019 that it had sold over 1 million units since its launch (in September 2018).

Today, 11th June 2019, Xiaomi has officially announced the availability of the long-expected Mi Band 4 in China. The Mi Band 3 took almost 4 months since its China launch to reach the Indian shores. Hopefully, the Mi Band takes much shorter. 

Let’s quickly look at what has changed since in Mi Band 4 since Mi Band 3. Mi Band 4 Vs Mi Band 3: What has changed.

Display:
Mi Band 3: 0.78 inch OLED, single point touch screen (single colour)
Mi Band 4: 0.95 inch AMOLED colour screen with a 120×240 resolution and 2.5D scratch-resistant glass.

The improvement to the display is one of the biggest changes that is being introduced in the Mi Band 4. The Mi Band 4 now gets a larger AMOLED screen. AMOLED screens are vibrant, brighter and more power efficient than the OLED display of the Mi Band 3.

Mi Band 3 suffered from readability issues in bright sun-light and now that will no longer be a problem with the Mi Band 4.

The display size is also increased by over 20% which is a good thing.

High Precision Accelerometer:
The accelerometer is one of the most important sensors in a fitness tracker. The accelerometer sensor takes care of tracking movement and measuring steps. The Mi Band 3 obviously had an accelerometer, and it was not bad either.It was accurate for the most part in counting steps.

However, with the Mi Band 4, Xiaomi has upped the ante and added a better, high precision accelerometer which boasts of six-axis high precision tracking and auto detect to track various sports activities including swimming.

Introduction of Mic:
The Mi Band 4 that launched today in China has a mic (which was not available in the Mi Band 3). The mic can be pretty useful for giving voice commands and controlling connected devices. For Chinese users it’s going to be pretty useful as they have a plethora of Mi devices that are all connected and controlled by the “Mi Home” system. How useful will the addition of mic be for Indian users is yet to be determined.

Introduction of NFC:
The Chinese version of the Mi Band 4 includes NFC one can use for contact-less payments. I doubt if this feature will be included in the Indian version.

Other features of Mi Band 4

  1. Waterproof: up to 50 meters, 5 atmospheres
  2. supports Bluetooth 5.0
  3. 20-day battery endurance
  4. Available in Black, Brown, Blue, Orange and Pink. It’s assumed that these colours won’t be available in India. In India it will be just black and other colour straps can be purchased separately

Availability in China: Available Now 11-June-2019
Availability in India: August 2019 (estimated)

Estimated Launch Price in India: The only downside about the Mi Band 4 is that it will be more expensive than the Mi Band 3 this is obvious considering the amount of hardware improvements that have been done. Estimated launch price at India would be Rs. 2399 at an estimated launch date in August 2019

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